Her inherent talents got her lead parts in top productions and it seemed like her career was about to take off when she started to complain about back pain during rehearsals for The Nutcracker. When the pain got so bad she couldn't walk anymore, her father carried her to the hospital. In August 2012, doctors confirmed the worst: the teen had pineoblastoma, a rare brain tumor the size of a baseball.

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Multiple rounds of chemotherapy, radiation treatments, and brain surgery left the teen blind and partially paralyzed.

"She was pretty much vegetative and unresponsive after her surgeries for a long, long time," her mother said. "She has a lot of cognitive deficits."

But nothing, not even challenges as extreme as these, could stand between Anna and what she loved most in the world. The teen is now cancer-free and has recently made a triumphant return to the stage, proving to the whole world that nothing can hold you back if you're determined to move forward.